Chris Christie's Bridgegate has a lot in common with Richard Nixon's Watergate

"I had empty boxes ready to take to work today, just in case." - David Wildstein in September, when he should have been canned

David Wildstein after an appearance in front of the state Assembly transportation committee Thursday. Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger

During a key speech in the midst of the Watergate scandal that brought him down, Richard Nixon famously remarked, "I am not a crook."

Last week another Republican with presidential ambitions uttered a similar line. "I am not a bully," said Gov. Chris Christie as the Bridgegate scandal was blowing up around him.

Will this scandal end up bringing him down as well? Probably not, but it’s sure making a dent in his chances of occupying the office Nixon once held.

Even a day after that Thursday news conference, State Street in Trenton was packed with TV trucks. Not much was going on inside, but the Statehouse made a nice backdrop for the talking heads as they savored a scandal that has some remarkable similarities to the one that unfolded 40 years in Washington.

(Reader George Humphris suggested the clip below from "Hogan's Heroes." It nicely sums up our governor's press conference, I fear.)

The parallels are striking. One is the margin of the landslide victories in the elections at issue. Republican Nixon beat Democrat George McGovern by 23 points in that 1972 election. Republican Christie defeated Democrat Barbara Buono by 22 points in 2013.

Another is in the timing. In both cases, the offense in question occurred in the run-up to the election. And in both cases, the offense was relatively trivial, but those involved decided to keep a lid on it until the campaign had concluded.

That of course required a cover-up. Watergate led directly to the political axiom "The cover-up is worse than the crime." I suspect the same will hold true for Bridgegate.

One traffic jam after another: A police officer diverts traffic from Main Street in Fort Lee as Governor Chris Christie meets with the mayor about the George Washington Bridge lane closures. (John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger)

If Christie had decided to fire the fanatically loyal operative behind this dirty trick, David Wildstein, from his Port Authority post back in September, the controversy might have ended quickly. Wildstein apparently feared that would be the case. After Wall Street Journal reporter Ted Mann started sniffing around the story in mid-September, Wildstein sent Christie’s political hatchet man, Bill Stepien, an e-mail reading, "I had empty boxes ready to take to work today, just in case," an apparent reference to cleaning out his office.

Wildstein wasn’t dumped until after the election, however, with Christie personally approving the news release by communications director Michael Drewniak that praised Wildstein for his loyal service.

Next to go was Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni. But as with Watergate, the first firings weren’t sufficient. And as with Watergate, the scandal might have gone away without an electronic record of key statements implicating the culprits.

In Watergate it was that secret White House taping system. In Bridgegate it was those e-mails from Wildstein subpoenaed by the Assembly Transportation Committee.

After they reached the media Wednesday, the governor called a news conference Thursday at which he expressed outrage at his underlings. But was he angry because they conspired to close the lanes for political purposes? Or because they were so inept that they got caught?

The timing certainly looks suspicious. If Christie truly was upset about the shutdown, the time to express remorse was on Dec. 9. That’s when Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye appeared before the committee.

Foye dismissed the argument that the closures were part of a traffic study. He told how he reversed the closures the moment he learned of the massive traffic jams they were causing in Fort Lee. Also testifying were two bridge officials who told how Wildstein ordered them not to warn Fort Lee officials the closings were coming.

Yet on Thursday, Christie made the rather amazing assertion that he still believed the closings were caused by a legitimate traffic study right up until the moment he read those e-mails. Coincidentally enough, Thursday was also the day on which Wildstein was called before the Assembly committee. And that just happens to have been the final hearing of the committee in the current session of the Legislature.

That session ends Tuesday. With it ends the subpoena power that permitted committee chairman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex) to get those e-mails and haul those officials in.

Is the incoming Assembly Speaker, Hudson County Democrat Vincent Prieto, going to renew the committee’s subpoena power? That was an open question around the Statehouse in the past few weeks. If Prieto were to decide to do the governor a favor, as many Democrats have been wont to do, the scandal might have petered out in the new Legislature.

Alas, those e-mails hit the papers. More firings followed. And now the scandal’s in the hands of the prosecutors. Unlike in Watergate, which featured the infamous "Saturday Night Massacre" of pesky prosecutors, Christie has no power over the prosecutor who’s likely to be probing this case. U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman answers not to Christie but to a Democratic president.

That’s likely to mean a steady stream of revelations over the coming months, all of which will be covered in the national media. As in Watergate, character is fate. Nixon was done in by his insatiable lust for power. But I suspect Christie has a couple more tricks up his sleeve than even Tricky Dick had.

COMMENTS: I'll be monitoring comments and responding to some Saturday and Sunday mornings, so feel free to ask questions. Before making any comments to the effect that this coverage is some sort of liberal plot against Christie, please read some of my prior work. I am the most conservative columnist in the state and perhaps the nation. My criticisms of Christie have been because he's been too liberal for my tastes.